WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ • Hacker News Board

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#71

Post by sparkzilla » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

photomatt wrote: post #66

sparkzilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you are "excited" to see this release. For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess. A comparison of Gutenberg to any of the major Page builders (Visual Composer, Divi, Enfold etc.) shows that Gutenberg is simply not ready for production. Features are missing, and there simply isn't the finesse you get from a page builder. Gutenberg should have been offered as an extension,…

We had it as an extension for a year and a half, and in that time it became the fastest growing plugin in WP's history. User tests also showed significant issues with our current editor approach and much better results with Gutenberg enabled, that's why some hosts have had it on by default since the summer. I agree it's not for everyone, that's why there's an opt-out, but it is an improved experience for the vast maj…

It might be fine for casual users, but it's really not good enough for those using WP to make sites for clients. That said, I wish you the best of success with it, and will continue to evaluate it as you progress.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#72

Post by noeltock » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

sparkzilla wrote: post #52

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

I'm not sure why you are "excited" to see this release. For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess. A comparison of Gutenberg to any of the major Page builders (Visual Composer, Divi, Enfold etc.) shows that Gutenberg is simply not ready for production. Features are missing, and there simply isn't the finesse you get from a page builder. Gutenberg should have been offered as an extension,…

> For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess

We use Gutenberg extensively with clients (and have for some time), so I don't think that blanket statement is fair. There's been a learning curve but the business value speaks for itself at the end of the day.

Agree with @photomatt's comments.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#73

Post by malydok » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

two2two wrote: post #47

adevx wrote: post #27

I know this is not for everyone, but sometimes it makes sense to jump off the CMS bandwagon and build a custom site. First I used Drupal but got tired of rewriting the site on every major release and jumped on WordPress. Then on WordPress I realized I could not create the user experience I was after without committing massive amounts of time and resources in custom plugins/themes. Leaving me too dependent on a moving…

I would love to do something like this. Drupal was a nightmare for me as a designer. Wordpress is much more manageable, but HTML/CSS/Javascript are king for me to have full control. What I'd like to learn next is implementing a database to cover the CMS side of things. Any resources you care to share that would put me on that path?

I believe that the static site generators of this day are the next step in custom web development. I'm currently working on a Gatsby.js project using Contentful as the content provider and it really feels like the stack of the future - build with all the shiny tools but send a fast, static website to the end user.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#74

Post by briandear » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #2

I seriously dislike the fact that an exteremely wide-spread open source project - wordpress.org - is driven by a for-profit company, wordpress.com. I guess there's no way around it, given Automattic employs most contributors, but this is not the first time when community requests and doubts are ignored (see emojis, half-baked media library refactoring, etc). On the other hand, I'd welcome if these forced changes woul…

It’s not the opinion that is being downvoted, but the implication— that open source backed by service driven companies is a bad thing. Without the enterprise Linux companies, Linux would likely be more of a niche since developers at their day jobs wouldn’t typically be using it, so you necessarily reduce the talent pool of people willing to contribute or adopt. Also, developing software takes money. WordPress in my opinion is a good model. The idea that for profit support is bad doesn’t seem to be supported by evidence. Look at Swift for example, or Go, or React or Redis. Even Rails gets substantial intellectual and practical support from Basecamp and wouldn’t even have existed if it weren’t for a for-profit company. Many of the great features of Rails came out of a Basecamp business need. Wordpress is similar. Wordpress isn’t perfect, but thank you Automatic for working on it.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#75

Post by dpkonofa » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

AustinG08 wrote: post #29

joekrill wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right. The big issue (for me, at least), is that it's a security nightmare. At least last I used it. It seemed there were security exploits popping up every day. Either from the core codebase, or from some random plugin everyone seemed to be using. I think that was just the nature of how their plugin system works? I'm not sure if anything's changed, but _maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun a…

My answer to this problem has been the plugin Wordfence. It's primary feature is a WAF whose rules update continuously and intercepts every request. Having worked at several agencies I've seen and inherited many hacked sites. I have never had a site be infected with a clean install using Wordfence. knocks on wood

Same here. WordFence has been a god-send. My agency offers fully custom sites, WordPress sites, and even builds on sites like Squarespace for people and I always differentiate them for clients. If it's a site that we'll end up managing, I always install WordFence and the developer license for it is incredibly reasonably priced. It's a 100% recommend from me for anyone considering it.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#76

Post by andy_adams » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

Is anyone else impressed with WordPress/Automattic's willingness to "just ship" despite things not being perfect?

As someone who struggles shipping software that basically nobody uses, I don't know if I'd have the guts to say "it's good enough" on a project as big & widely used as WordPress.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#77

Post by dawnerd » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

justinator wrote: post #54

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

Ever try redesigning a Wordpress site? All those plugins are just a Big Ball of Mud, and trying to figure out how to apply a design to it, without breaking everything is kind of impossible. Change a theme? Lose settings, styles, major layout choices, menu locations. I can go on. You basically have to develop your theme, apply it to the LIVE site, and fix the fires you find. Maybe a needed plugin now isn't compatible…

We do themes semi frequently enough to have a sort of process down. Never any problems here really. We just opt to not use much of the Wordpress ui helpers and make sure we’re not using plugins that generate their own ui. Then again they mostly end up being hosted with Wordpress VIP and they hold everything to a fairly high standard.

I’ll admit though, it’s a bit weird having a prod and dev environment with how many tweaks Wordpress can have. Haven’t really come up with a good solution for that.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#78

Post by dpkonofa » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

sparkzilla wrote: post #52

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

I'm not sure why you are "excited" to see this release. For those of us who create Wordpress sites for clients, this is a mess. A comparison of Gutenberg to any of the major Page builders (Visual Composer, Divi, Enfold etc.) shows that Gutenberg is simply not ready for production. Features are missing, and there simply isn't the finesse you get from a page builder. Gutenberg should have been offered as an extension,…

I hate to start this off this way but this comment makes me feel like you're either a very novice WP user or simply a designer that likes to advertise themselves as a dev but doesn't actually do a lot of coding. Divi and Visual Composer are both absolute messes from every aspect except for ease of use and they're incredibly bloated even for simple page layouts. Everything ends up as an inline style, the actual load time for pages is astronomical, and making any kind of theme changes are impossibly inconsistent because these page builders inextricably link all styles to the HTML instead of in proper CSS where they belong.

Gutenberg, on the other hand, while not perfect, is several times better than these systems, in my opinion. There's still some messiness to it but it's much easier to set up a theme for a client and have comfort that, when you come back to edit something for them, they haven't borked it all to hell requiring you to dig through a slow and clunky interface just to reset a font-color.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#79

Post by dpkonofa » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

sparkzilla wrote: post #71

photomatt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had it as an extension for a year and a half, and in that time it became the fastest growing plugin in WP's history. User tests also showed significant issues with our current editor approach and much better results with Gutenberg enabled, that's why some hosts have had it on by default since the summer. I agree it's not for everyone, that's why there's an opt-out, but it is an improved experience for the vast maj…

It might be fine for casual users, but it's really not good enough for those using WP to make sites for clients. That said, I wish you the best of success with it, and will continue to evaluate it as you progress.

If Gutenberg isn't an improvement for you with regard to client sites, then you're not actually developing your client sites correctly per the WordPress specs. You're relying on builders to do too much of the work for you.

Re: WordPress 5.0: A Gutenberg FAQ

#80

Post by rob » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

joekrill wrote: post #15

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #14

I know a lot of people dislike PHP and WordPress, but I haven't found _anything_ that comes close to it in terms of sheer extensibility and plugin ecosystem. There's a plugin for pretty much anything you might want to do with a platform. I even moved my personal Jekyll-powered blog to WordPress a few years ago. My favorite thing about WordPress is that it's a known quantity. There's an easy to follow tutorial teachin…

You're absolutely right. The big issue (for me, at least), is that it's a security nightmare. At least last I used it. It seemed there were security exploits popping up every day. Either from the core codebase, or from some random plugin everyone seemed to be using. I think that was just the nature of how their plugin system works? I'm not sure if anything's changed, but _maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun a…

> but _maintaining_ a WordPress install is not fun and requires constant - almost tiring - oversight.

This isn't true. I've been running and managing 15+ WordPress websites for over 5 years now and not once run into any issues like you're describing, and I certainly haven't lost sleep or become 'tired' over it.

Using a good tool like ManageWP (or InfiniteWP, or any of the others, take your pick) makes managing multiple WordPress websites a breeze (e.g., it alerts you every morning with what updates are available), and with their paid backup/restore functionality there's really nothing to worry about if something did go wrong. Combine all this with a nice WAF or security plugin and you're fine. Or you can use a service like MalCare that combines both.

If you go months and years without updating, then yes you're asking for trouble like any other piece of software.

Too many people used WordPress over 10+ years ago and just stick to the same speech about PHP and WordPress and security and all that and how everything is so bad, and that a different CMS that nobody uses in a obscure language is sooo much better and secure (that won't be here in a couple of years in all likelihood.)